| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: protect his head and, lying flat on the ground, begins to
shoot.
The enemy scatter in all directions, pursuing the few
fugitives hiding in the brush. Demetrio aims; he does not
waste a single shot.
His famous marksmanship fills him with joy. Where
he settles his glance, he settles a bullet. He loads his gun
once more . . . takes aim. . . .
The smoke of the guns hangs thick in the air. Locusts
chant their mysterious, imperturbable song. Doves coo
lyrically in the crannies of the rocks. The cows graze
The Underdogs |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Wyant sat at the table d'hote of his hotel, re-reading his
friend's letter over a late luncheon. He had been five days in
Siena without having found time to call on Doctor Lombard; not
from any indifference to the opportunity presented, but because
it was his first visit to the strange red city and he was still
under the spell of its more conspicuous wonders--the brick
palaces flinging out their wrought-iron torch-holders with a
gesture of arrogant suzerainty; the great council-chamber
emblazoned with civic allegories; the pageant of Pope Julius on
the Library walls; the Sodomas smiling balefully through the dusk
of mouldering chapels--and it was only when his first hunger was
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: crawling out to the heads of the bay. But here the breeze was
freshening. Moran took the wheel; the flying-jib and staysail
were set; the wake began to whiten under the schooner's stern, the
forefoot sang; the Pacific opened out more and more; and by 12:30
o'clock Moran put the wheel over, and, as the schooner's bow swung
to the northward, cried to Wilbur:
"Mate, look your last of Magdalena Bay!"
Standing at her side, Wilbur turned and swept the curve of the
coast with a single glance. The vast, heat-scourged hoop of
yellow sand, the still, smooth shield of indigo water, with its
beds of kelp, had become insensibly dear to him. It was all
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